born at 321.89 PPM CO2

"Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort." - John Ruskin

Saturday, 2 May 2026

(GUF) THE WASTE FILES



THE WASTE FILES – THE MANIFESTO - By Guff House

What is this going to be?

Wastipedia (or whatever I end up calling it) is/will be a free, open and evolving library of practical waste management knowledge built from over forty years of real-world experience existing for one simple reason: to make waste management clearer, more accurate and more honest.

• No subscriptions.
• No gatekeeping.
• No pretending theory works when it doesn’t.


Why it's needed

Too much of this industry runs on outdated guidance, misinterpreted legislation (That’s how we’ve always done it”) and the occasional confident guess dressed up as fact. Somewhere between legislation, operations and procurement, things get muddled. Wastipedia (or whatever) will exist to un-muddle them.

What you’ll find here

Documents that answer real questions, such as:

• What is this waste actually classified as?
• Can this really be recycled — or is that wishful thinking?
• What should I be buying if I want to avoid disposal problems later?
• What does the legislation say… and what actually happens on site?


Each document is/will be designed to be practical, clear, usable under pressure and grounded in reality, not theory.

The Principle: Reality Over Rhetoric

Every piece of content will follow one rule - if it doesn’t work in the real world, it doesn’t belong here. Where there’s a gap between guidance and practice, we will say so. Clearly, honestly and without dressing it up.

Open to Correction – Not Open to Chaos

Wastipedia (whatever) will never be static. If something is wrong, outdated, incomplete or could be improved, you are invited to challenge it; and as long as you can back it up (guidance, regs or real operational experience), keeping it practical, constructive, every document will be versioned, reviewed and updated where necessary. Contributors who improve content can be credited (if they wish) because accuracy matters and so does accountability.

What this is not going to be

Wastipedia will not be:

• A marketing exercise
• A compliance box-ticking tool
• A place for vague sustainability claims


Who it’s going to be for

Anyone who has ever stood in front of a bin thinking: “Right… what actually happens to this?”

My aim

To build something people can rely on. Not because it looks good but because it’s right.

Built from experience - Improved by those still doing the job - Open to challenge - closed to nonsense.

If you know something - add to it.
If you see something wrong - fix it.
If you’ve ever questioned how this industry works -  you’re in the right place.

More like this (The Waste Files) - link - more like this (legislation) - link - more like this (knowledge) - link

(NAT) WORLD'S LARGEST REDOX FLOW


Energy firm FlexBase is building a giant battery in this pit in northern Switzerland

In northern Switzerland, a construction team is hard at work excavating a hole in the ground that will end up being over 88 ft (27 m) deep, and spanning the length of two soccer pitches. This pit will be home to Switzerland's first redox flow battery for storing clean energy – and it'll be the most powerful of its kind in the world.

The idea is to utilize a storage technology that's nearly 150 years old to prevent blackouts, and help stabilize Swiss and European power grids in times of fluctuating demand. It's being built by Swiss energy company FlexBase, and the project is set to cost over a billion dollars.

"We will be able to inject or absorb up to 1.2 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electricity in a few milliseconds," FlexBase co-founder Marcel Aumer told Swiss public broadcaster RTS earlier this month. That's equivalent to the output of the Leibstadt nuclear power plant located in the same region, near the German border. The giant battery will be fed with excess energy generated by windmills.

The tech theoretically dates back to 1879, and was modernized through NASA research between the 1950s and 70s. While lithium-ion batteries are more common and have improved and become more affordable, they're mostly suitable for short-term energy storage. Redox flow batteries are a better choice for long-term, grid-scale storage – and FlexBase says the various components needed for them, like tanks, membranes, cell stacks and pumps, have become cheaper as the industry has matured in recent years.

A redox flow battery works by storing energy in liquid electrolytes. Two chemical components that are high in water content are stored in large tanks, and pumped through a cell with a membrane separating them. When the battery is charging, ions transfer through the membrane from the positive to the negative side – changing the oxidation state and storing energy indefinitely. The opposite reaction occurs when it's discharging, and these charge cycles are inert. More of this article from the brilliant (New Atlas) - link - more like this (Redox flow) - link - more like this (Switzerland) - link